media

From origins as a WW II relic to a community fund-raising rescue, and now a new collective ownership, the story of the Rio Theater could be told on the big screen inside. But we get it instead from reporter Ryan Miller.

“Media Freedom on the Line” is the subtitle for the annual volume of media analysis and under-covered news stories from Project Censored. Today's report looks at the latest work from the media watchdog group.

Climate change is being felt even at the highest peaks in the Sierra Nevada, where the remaining glaciers in California are melting away. So Tim Palmer set out to capture them on film, while it was still possible. He talks about that project on this archive edition of the North Bay Report.

The newest addition to KRCB television’s Health Connections series is a long-form documentary titled Place Matters. It’s an exploration of how myriad social inequalities affect community health—using Santa Rosa as a case in point.

Back in 1974, the little west Marin town of Bolinas started its own community newspaper, The Bolinas Hearsay News. Remarkably, it’s still going, but now the paper’s full 40 year history is collected and on display at the town’s museum. The exhibit opened over the past weekend.

Early editions of the Bolinas Hearsay News were handwritten or drawn, but today the paper is published online. You’ll find a link to their digital archives on their website, as well.

New digital technologies are already listening in on your daily life and intruding into your wallet. What’s coming next may be even creepier.

Some of what Thomas Keenan writes about in Technocreep may seem like science fiction. Yet his carefully annotated book abounds with concrete examples, such as the way one major retailer is already processing the customer purchase data it routinely collects to target those customers with special offers.

As newspapers struggle to survive and prosper in the digital age, what will become of their specialized contributors, such as editorial cartoonists? They’re hustling to adapt to the new media landscape, as we hear on today’s North Bay Report.

Mark Fiore and Jen Sorenson will be part of a panel discussing “Editorial Cartooning Today” at the Charles Schulz Museum on Sunday. Find details here.

Project Censored is out with its latest collection of under-covered news, which includes stories about climate change, corporate corruption, mainstream media errors and omissions, and a nationwide analysis of police-involved shootings.

See KRCB's independent reporting on ocean acidificiation, a two-part story from 2011 that can be found here and here.

Peanuts made Santa Rosa cartoonist Charles Schulz popular world-wide, but that long-running strip was not where his career began. A new exhibit at the Charles M. Schulz museum looks back as his earliest work, and we hear more about that today from the woman who helped put it together.

As California’s drought continues, the range of possible responses is narrowing, while the cost for most available options is increasing. The California Water Challenge is a new interactive on-line tool intended to give us a better understanding of the choices and trade-offs that face us. Here’s a closer look at it.

The California Water Challenge website went live this morning; you can try it for yourself here.

Michael “Bug” Deakin has made the recovery and reuse of old wood and other building materials into his life’s work. That is now the source material for a lavishly illustrated book of his Reclaimed Stories.

Heritage Salvage deals in more than just reclaimed lumber, but owner Bug Deakin freely admits that his first and greatest fondness is for old wood.

Summer on the lower Russian River is typically tranquil and laid back—but not always. Recent articles in the Sebastopol Times and News have called attention to a recurring noisy hazard on the water. Today we hear from the author of those reports.

The entire Sebastopol Police Department—a dozen full-time officers and 11 reservists—now carry department-issued video cameras that record all of their interactions while on the job. This may make them the first local law enforcement agency to be so equipped. Today, we find out why, and how they are used.

Greg King, a one-time Sonoma County journalist, has spent the past three decades working to protect and preserve the remaining old growth redwood forests of Northern California. His book detailing that history—both his and the trees’—is a work in progress, but he’s offering a preview in a talk on the Sonoma Coast this evening. Here, we get a preview of that preview.

TED talks have become a big deal. There are hundreds of them online now, and of course KRCB airs NPR’s weekly TED Radio Hour on Sunday mornings at 9. And there is also a local Ted-type event in Santa Rosa which is happening on Saturday.

That local TED-x event is coming up on Saturday afternoon, June 14th, starting at 1 pm in the Jackson Theater at Sonoma Country Day School. For a full list of the presenters, click here.

Anyone with pictures from the past in Marin County is being invited to share them—just long enough to be scanned—for inclusion in a forthcoming photo-history book.

Bruce Robinson, talking with Jean Zerrudo from the Marin History Museum. Those photo scanning sessions are coming up later this month (see schedule below), and you can find the submission guidelines and other details here.

One of Woody Allen’s early movies was titled “Bananas,” but it wasn’t actually about the popular yellow fruit. That distinction belongs to the new documentary Mondo Banana. It was directed by a part-time west county filmmaker, who stopped in to talk about his project with Bruce Robinson.

The power of social media and the Internet can be a remarkable thing. One current example is a local woman—someone well-known to KRCB listeners—who has used the web to mobilize bird lovers nationally and world-wide, in defense of threatened ravens in southern Idaho.

Click here to learn more about the campaign to protect ravens in Idaho. To see or sign Michele’s petition, go here.

First there was MAKE magazine. Then there were the Maker Faires. And there’s still more making on the way.

Described as "The Greatest Show (and Tell) on Earth," the 9th annual Bay Area Maker Faire will be held at the San Mateo Events Center May 17 & 18, 2014. Get more information here, or click here for tickets.

A surprise hit at the Sonoma Film Festival last summer was the documentary, Taking My Parents to Burning Man, which was so popular the Sebastiani Theater brought it back for a two-night encore over the weekend. Along the way, the young, first-time filmmaker behind it--who was here from Vancouver, British Columbia--found a few minutes to visit KRCB.

Santa Rosa’s Community Media Center has undergone a transformation, and it is now the C-Media Center, which is holding a sort of coming out celebration tomorrow night. Today’s Exchange brings us details about both.

A local ad campaign is out to combat the big budgets of soft drink makers , using basic math to reveal just how much sugar those beverages contain.

Although they are also often very sweet, fruit juices can be a healthier choice than sodas or energy drinks. But Jasmine Hunt cautions, you have to check carefully to be sure you’re getting real fruit, not just added sugar.

Another alternative for some, are diet sodas. They don’t contain the unhealthy amounts of sugar, says nutritionist Nora Bulloch, but they may pose other problems.